The system effectively tracks the progress made on each Lead. A Lead can involve sales effort to existing or new clients. It can also involve post-sales support activities. The lead is marked as ‘Opened’ at the time of initiation and the marking is changed as the effort progresses. The progressive markings could be ‘Follow Up’, ‘Quotation’, ‘Negotiation’, ‘Finalized’, ‘Payment’, and ‘Delivered’.

The terminology of the markings is customized according to the unique usage pattern of the organization. There is no limit to the number of milestones in the sales/support activities. Such marking of lead status enables the sales team and management to immediately ascertain the progress made on each effort. Multiple-parameter based search also enable the company to get information on the number of leads pending at each milestone, leads pending with each executive, duration of such pending and such other details enumerated later.

The system therefore, assists in gauging the
efficiency of the sales efforts and employee
productivity, in addition to sales effort
tracking. Specialists in handling important
milestones can be appointed to increase
effectiveness. Similarly leads that have
achieved key milestones can be assigned to
appropriate authorities. This enables better
fixation of responsibility. For instance, a
sales executive can handle the client unto the
quotation stage and then pass it on to the
manager for negotiation.

Complete history of each Lead is maintained within the system. The working of the system ensures that all leads assigned to subordinates and reports submitted on them are chronologically recorded for future reference and retention of knowledge within the organization. During the progress of the lead or after completion, the sales executive or any other authorized person can review the entire history of the lead. The working of the system is explained with the help of an example:

X, the team leader of the direct sales force of a company Y has three people under him, A B and C. He assigns A, the lead of selling 20 copiers to client P. This assignment is given a unique code. A is required to make regular reporting on progress made on this lead. His feedback takes the form of informing X the briefs of his interactions with the client. X can in turn give regular inputs, advice and instructions. Since complete records are maintained X can review the entire progress at any time. Suppose now, that A leaves the organization and the lead has to be reassigned to B. B just has to go through the history of the assignment and he is ready to take up within an hour. The downtime for the organization is eliminated. The client interaction continues seamlessly.

Many more example or myriad corporate situations can be taken to illustrate the usefulness of the system. The basic strength of this module is that the company’s dependency on employees is reduced to minimal as the knowledge management for the organization is done by the system. This intelligent system assists top management in effective utilization of resources. Maintenance of comprehensive records also ensures that all necessary efforts have been made to achieve the success of the lead. Inadvertent omissions are eliminated. The efficient security system built into the system ensures the employees have access to data relevant to them.

The system maintains records of all documents and emails sent during the sales effort. The system maintains a log of these and also creates a back up in a central repository. In the central repository documents are indexed on the basis of the particular sales effort. The users can also send emails directly from the system. This is a very important feature in the current business scenario, wherein most communications happen via emails. Complete logs of such emails are maintained. A number of user-defined preferences are available for ease of usage. Robust search mechanism enables the user to track all such documents and emails.

eSalesEdge is an inbuilt module of generating quotations for submission to clients. When a user desires to create a quotation the system automatically picks up all details of the client and the products under consideration. The product details like quantity and rates can be changed as per the requirements. Complete integration ensures that all records are updated accordingly. The user can also define the tariffs, discounts, delivery charges, terms of payment and such others as may be applicable. The quotation can be printed directly from the system. Multiple quotations can be generated under each sales effort. The system can also be programmed to disallow printing of quotations without proper authorization. In such cases, the designated authority is automatically notified on creation of a quotation. Complete records of quotations created and submitted are maintained and are easily searchable.

The Telemarketing module of eSalesEdge is a highly effective tool to for monitoring, management and coordination of the telemarketing efforts. It allows users to import lists of target segment, make calling lists for call scheduling, report on calls made, schedule necessary follow-up and create leads for further action by the lead management team. On logging onto the application, the telemarketing agent can either choose to work on pending calls for the day or generate a new list and make fresh calls. The outcome of the calls are recorded and necessary further action specified. Reports are available to monitor the performance of each agent and the response from specific lists/prospect profiles.

A database comprising all product lines, product items and multiple models is created. A salesman at the time of initiating the sales call enters all the different products that have been offered to the client. As he moves forward into the sales cycle, he and his seniors can track the status of the sales effort on each item. For example, the client might initially show interest in three models of copiers and two models of fax machines. Later he might decide to just buy one model of copier. The system enables tracking of the point in the sales cycle where particular items were dropped and the reasons for dropping. The reasons could be absence of certain features, price, delivery schedule, service or a combination of these and others. Again a particular product/model might be dropped owing to preference for another product/model of the company or that of a competitor. The system assists the organization in exactly locating the reasons for success/failure of particular products. This leads to better forecasting, effective sales planning and appropriate product thrust.

A continuously updating database of clients is created. The database captures all required information about the client in terms of vertical industries, location, contact person (s), corresponding dealer or salesman, size of operations, branches and such other information. The system also captures information on the key decision parameters of the client organization, decision making hierarchy and similar information that might assist the sales effort or create opportunities for cross selling. In case of clients with multiple offices falling under different salesmen territories, the system enables each to be handled separately while allowing for aggregation of client accounts for analytical purposes. The database structure is designed to allow multi-dimensional analyses and forecasting.

The expense module allows recording of expenses incurred during a sales effort under various accounting heads. The heads are customized as per the norms of the organization and can be altered accordingly. The system also offers an optional authorization framework. The Sales Executive inserts the expense records and submits them for authorization by the designated authority. The authorized person is automatically notified. He can either allow it or reject it. In case of the former the records sent to the paying authority. In case of rejection, the record is sent to the Executive for necessary action. Complete records are maintained of such expenses and the database can be searched to extract micro level information on expenses.

Sales Targets
can be set for different time periods for each sales executive. The overall
target comprises targets for each product that the executive handles. Targets of
members are clubbed to ascertain the Group/Team target. Performance of the
executive during any period of time is compared with the previously set target
to gauge deviations, if any. The executives are not required to prepare separate
reports prior to appraisal/review meetings. All relevant data can be readily
extracted from the system. This saves considerable time and effort.

Against each enquiry/lead, the respective executive can record the expected payment schedule and the actual collection. The amount of expected collection during any period of time can be readily be ascertained. This helps in appropriate cash flow management while giving instant information on the payment expected from each client in the immediate forthcoming period. Moreover, the performance of each executive/team on the payment collection parameter can be easily gauged by comparing the schedule with the actual collection. The outstanding from each debtor is available in the system itself and there is no need to seek the information from the accounts department. This helps in better client management and lowers risk of bad debts owing to lack of timely information about credit positions of clients.

eSalesEdge assists the users to generate regular mailers/letters/documents to the clients. The users can search and optionally select the clients to whom the documents will be mail-merged. This enables considerable saving in terms of time spent on creating such documents, and gives
flexibility to the users to make their own customized templates for the documents.

eSalesEdge
assists the users to generate regular mailers/letters/documents to the clients.
The users can search and optionally select the clients to whom the documents
will be mail-merged. This enables considerable saving in terms of time spent on
creating such documents, and gives flexibility to the users to make their own
customized templates for the documents.

eSalesEdge offers a robust data mining framework to allow the users to extract meaningful micro level reports for proper analysis and control. Each module of the system is designed to enable extensive multi-parameter searches. The analytical framework can be considered under the following broad areas:

Effort Analysis

The efforts of the organization can be scrutinized to determine the status and progress of each. Information can be readily obtained on concern areas like the efforts being made for each client segment, each client, the documents and emails exchanged, the quotations submitted, the executive responsible for each effort, number of leads being handled by each executive, contribution of different executives to each effort, duration of each successful, unsuccessful and pending effort, progress made on each effort in terms of milestones achieved and sub classifications of each of the above.

Product Analysis

All efforts are directed towards selling products and the achievements on this front have to be adequate monitored. eSalesEdge allows the users to find the quantum and value of sales made for each product and product category, the contribution margin earned in each deal, the open opportunities available on a particular day, instances of product failures and their causes. Again, multiple parameter searches can be executed to churn out user defined information.

Productivity Analysis

eSalesEdge tracks productivity of the organization's efforts across customers and employees. Sales Variance reports can be generated to determine the magnitude of discounts being passed to each client/ client group by each employee. This is important to gauge whether increase in volumes is being achieved at the cost of contribution margins. Conversion reports can be generated to determine the fate of each opportunity. The strengths and weaknesses of particular employees in handling specific leads/clients can also be monitored and remedial measures adopted to improve efficiency.

Customer Analysis

eSalesEdge is geared
towards enabling the organization in
understanding its clients better with the
purpose of improving the efficiency of customer
management and productivity of sales
efforts through better targeting. Information on
sales to each client/client group, average value
of each deal, discounts offered, time taken to
conclude efforts, reasons for product
rejections, and product shifts can be combined
to rate each customer and formulate more
targeted sales plans.

We live in an era of highly demanding customers and ever increasing competition. Businesses are compelled to remain on their toes, literally, in order to offer timely and appropriate response to customer requirements and market challenges. Thankfully, technology has kept pace with these developments and proliferation of mobile connectivity infrastructure is following a geometric progression. Mobile phones have become a must have for almost every employee of an organization. The challenge lies in making existing application compatible for access through the mobile phone and also developing new applications that give real time information to the executives, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders on the move. MindEdge Solutions is at the very crest of this mobile wave.